Various commercial meat slicing machinery are currently used by delicatessens, supermarkets, and butcher shops to slice bulk meat or cheese product for sale to retail customers. The slicer operator typically stands in front of the machine and adjusts the slicer to provide slices of pre-determined thickness by rotating a knob having numerical indicia of the slice thickness. The rotation of the knob adjusts the distance between a gauge plate and a slicing blade to correlate with the numerical value selected for slice thickness. The slicer operator typically stands in front of the machine with the product to be sliced held on a movable table on the right side of the operator. The operator turns on the blade motor, places the food product onto a sliding table, secures the food product on the table with a pusher, rotates a gauge plate adjustment knob to select a numerical value for the thickness of slice to be cut, and begins to manually operate the slicer by grasping a handle below the table on the right side of the machine and sliding it back and forth to bring the product into contact with the rotating. As the slices are cut, they fall from the slicing area toward a tray area on the left side of the slicer, and the operator typically gathers the product and views the width of the slices being cut for conformity with the desires of a given customer.
Many times, the operator or customer will find the resulting slices to be of an unsatisfactory thickness so the operator will again rotate the gauge plate adjustment knob and check the numerical indicia of slice thickness on the knob. During the period of adjustment, the operator frequently needs to refer back to the indicia and visually inspect the thickness of the slices in order to arrive at an acceptable slice thickness. This process causes the operator to shift his or her attention from the blade area to the front of the machine where the slice thickness selector knob is located. This shifting of attention from the cutting area to the selector knob is undesirable since it impairs the efficiency of operation. Accordingly, there is a need for a slicing machine which allows the operator to maintain the focus of his or her attention on the blade area during the slicing operation.
During operation of the slicer, it is common for the spinning blade to eject debris and juices from the sliced product. Those juices and debris are deposited on the exterior surfaces of the slicer. For this reason, it has been common to design exterior portions of the slicer to be removable for cleaning in a dishwasher or sink at the end of a work shift. One such removable portion of the slicer is typically a sharpening stone assembly which is used to sharpen and deburr the blade edge. If the sharpening stones become encrusted or coated with juices and/or debris, it cannot properly sharpen the blade. Thus, from time to time, the sharpening stone assembly is removed from the slicer and washed. When conventional sharpening stones are washed, they typically require twenty four hours of drying time before they can be returned to service. One approach to this problem has been to provide “washable” sharpening stones that may be washed and immediately returned to service without extended drying time. However, such “washable” stones suffer from the drawback of being many times more costly to manufacture than conventional stones.
Another problem with the prior sharpening stone assembly was that they required periodic maintenance to maintain proper alignment with the blade. Such periodic maintenance required a service call from a trained technician to insure that the sharpening stones engaged the blade at the proper angle to optimize sharpening. Typically, prior stone sharpening assemblies were mounted on a portion of the slicing machine frame and pivoted into contact with the blade for sharpening. As the blade is continually sharpened over its service life, it becomes reduced in diameter due to wearing away of metal from the blade edge. Thus, when the diameter of the blade has been reduced significantly, the angle of engagement with the stone varies from the optimal angle for sharpening the blade. This misalignment of the sharpening stone with the blade edge precludes an optimally sharpened edge. Accordingly, there is a need for a sharpening assembly that requires less frequent washing or maintenance.
Another portion of the slicer that has typically been designed to be removable for washing is the slidable support arm and table assembly of the slicer. In prior slicers the removable arm and table assembly are heavy and bulky and thus cumbersome to remove, wash, and reinstall on the slicer. Moreover, the weight and bulk of the arm and table assembly made it difficult to load into a conventional dishwasher or fit into a sink. A further problem with the prior slicing machines was the inconvenience of the process for removal of the table and support arm assembly. Typically, the adjustable gauge plate must be adjusted to its fully closed in the “0” slice thickness position to protect operators from inadvertently cutting themselves on the slicing blade. Unless the gauge plate was in that closed position, an interlock system prevented the support arm and table assembly from being removed from the slicer. Once the gauge plate was in the fully closed position, the prior interlock systems required, as an additional step, that the operator slide the table support arm assembly into its fully retracted position. In this position, the table support arm is locked into a stationary position which further impedes the cleaning process.
Another drawback with conventional removable arm and table assembly is that they were difficult to “quick clean” between slicing jobs during periods of extended operation. Such “quick cleaning” should be done between each change of product to be sliced on the slicing machine to prevent any cross-contamination between different food products. Thus, there is a need for a slicing machine with a table and support arm assembly that is configured to facilitate quick cleaning and for easy removal of the table for end of shift cleaning in a dishwasher or sink.
Another problem with prior slicing machines is that the prior designs included a pusher mechanism which did not adequately hold the product during slicing. Such prior pushers included a bar that is slidable and pivotally mounted on an adjustment rod which spans the length of the table. The bar is rotated nearly three hundred and sixty degrees from a “park position” to a “pusher position” behind the product. In this “pusher position,” the front surface of the pusher engages the back end of the food product. Since the table is typically angled at forty five degrees relative to the horizon, the force of gravity acts on the food product and pusher to draw them toward the blade during the slicing operation. The force exerted on the product by the sliding motion of the table and contact with the rotating blade can cause the product to jump and/or become cocked which results in the production of inferior slices having differing thickness along the length of a slice. This failure to adequately secure the food product can also result in the product heel having an angled surface. Acceptable slices cannot be made from such an angled heel and thereby a portion of the product may be wasted.
The problem of a cocked product is particularly acute where the length of the product is greater than the length of the table of the slicer. In that case, the product extends past the end of the table such that the front surface of the pusher bar cannot engage the back end of the food product. For this reason, prior pushers were designed to be rotated down upon the top of the product so that their bottom surface engaged the top surface of the food product. To adequately secure the food product, hooks or other protrusions were frequently provided to pierce the top surface of the product to secure it to the pusher. This process can result in undesirable damage to the product. Thus, there is a need for a pusher design which can hold a food product securely to avoid cocking or jumping, readily accommodate products longer than the slicer table, and/or avoid damage to the top of a food product.
Another problem with typical pusher design is that the pusher must be rotated almost three hundred sixty degrees back behind the table to a “park position” prior to loading the product onto the table. This step requires a large arm rotation movement by the operator which is cumbersome and time consuming. Thus, there is a need in the slicing field for a slicer which eliminate the step of rotating the pusher arm to a park position to increase ease of use and operator efficiency.
Another problem with prior meat slicers was that the handles for sliding the table during manual operation were not sufficiently convenient for the operator to use. The handles were typically positioned and angled so that the operator had to grasp the handle with his or her right hand in a single hand position. This arrangement can lead to operator fatigue during long periods of manual slicing. Frequently, the prior handles were placed in position that made it extremely uncomfortable to manually slide the table using the operator's left hand. Thus, there is a need for an ergonomically designed slicing machine that can assist in relieving operator fatigue during long period of manual slicing.
A further problem with prior slicing machines was that the height of the stack of sliced materials was limited by the distance between the top surface of the tray of the machine and the bottom surface of the blade assembly. This is so because, during automatic mode operation, slices fall from the blade area onto the top surface of a tray area formed by the base of the slicer into a stack whose height cannot exceed the bottom surface of the blade assembly. Thus, when the machine was used in automatic mode for slicing a large amount of product, the operator was required to make repeated trips to the slicer to remove a stack of sliced product when a maximum stack height was reached. Accordingly, there is a need for a slicing machine that can accommodate a larger stack height for sliced product.
Another difficulty with prior slicing machines was the efficiency of their operation during the automatic slicing mode. Typically, such machines included only three discrete settings for the distance traveled by the table during an automatic slice stroke. Thus, the operator had to choose a stroke length that exceeded the width of the product to be sliced. The difference between the length of the stroke and the width of the product was wasted motion by the slicing machine which increased the time necessary to produce a given number of slices. Furthermore, the efficiency of such automatic slicers was further limited by the small number of speed settings for the movement of the table. Typically the prior machines included only a limited number of stroke speed settings, e.g., from one to three stroke speed settings. Thus, prior machines did not allow the stroke length and stroke speed to be optimized for a given task to maximize efficiency of the production of slices during automatic operation. Accordingly, there is a need for a slicing machine which can increase the efficiency of the automatic slicing mode.
Another problem with prior meat slicers was the difficulty of cleaning underneath the slicer at the end of work shifts. One approach to this problem is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,245,898 issued to Somal, et al. which discloses a lift arrangement for a slicing machine. The patent discloses a lever assembly located on the right side of the slicing machine. Since the slicing machine is typically oriented with its front side facing the operator and the counter supporting the machine limiting access to the right side of the machine, some operators found it uncomfortable to lift the lever arm due to the length of reach required. Accordingly, there is need for a slicing machine lifting apparatus which can be more easily accessed and operated by the operator.